


A Willing Foe and Sea-Room

by ClutchHedonist



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Come Marking, Come Swallowing, Face Slapping, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rough Oral Sex, francis crozier is daddy af, james is a brat who gets what he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:07:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24988051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClutchHedonist/pseuds/ClutchHedonist
Summary: “Nnh.” Fitzjames whines around his thumb.“None of that. Clearly, you can’t shut your own bloody mouth to save your life.” Francis huffs, “So I’ll shut it for you.”
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 27
Kudos: 128





	A Willing Foe and Sea-Room

To give men sea-time for Chesney’s disastrous expedition to Mesopotamia was, in Francis’s opinion, misguided at best. The Euphrates could hardly be considered the like of the open sea, after all, and even then, all in all, the expedition had involved little actual sailing. But with the gleam of the freshly-minted gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society on his chest, Chesney had had more than enough weight to bully the Admiralty into granting the requests for promotion, and to damn Francis into an evening spent in celebration. 

The men of the hour, Cleaveland, Fitzjames, and Charlewood -Lieutenants, all, now- he knows only by name, and even then at some distance. No doubt he would be hard-pressed to pick a single one of them out of the crowd. As such, he’s spent most of his evening lurking beside the refreshments and lamenting the absence of Ross.

He’s been too long on land. Two years, now, since the  _ Cove _ . A commander, for one of them. Landlocked. He’s as like to go mad as he is to enjoy being forced into social niceties, now. Especially if he has to spend another moment listening to this bloody boy swanning by the punch bowl.

“-had us encircled, the entire ship.” He’s saying to a tight knot of petty officers, gesturing broadly with his glass, “And this not two weeks after poor Ainsworth had trekked fifty miles to meet up with us again.”

This must be one of them, then. Francis squints at him across the table. He’s a willowy sort of lad, all limbs and angles. A long, prominent nose, and a mouth that’s never more than a hair’s breadth away from a smirk, upper lip always drawn back, sneering.  _ This  _ is what they’re making Lieutenants out of nowadays? He’d rather be back in Baffin Bay. At least the Arctic has the decency to be plain about itself.

“But what of all the mails, sir?” One of the men that surround him asks, eyes wide and bovine, “We’ve heard tell you brought them through the desert.”

The boy’s eyes glint, “Twelve hundred miles.” He answers, and Francis swears for a moment that he sees him go up on his toes in delight, “Through not inconsiderable peril.” 

Francis snorts into his glass, realizes too late that the boy’s heard him. His dark brows lift as he holds him in curious regard. Then, the flicker of a smile, another damnable  _ leer _ , and he’s excusing himself from his company. Francis’s stomach tightens.

“Commander, sir!” He’s crying before he’s even made his way around the table, “Commander Crozier, if I am not incorrect?”

“Aye.” Francis mumbles, promptly hiding behind another swig of champagne.

“I thought as much. I’ve seen your likeness in the Society’s monthly, sir.” He extends one slender hand, “James Fitzjames.”

Francis meets it with his own, “A pleasure, Lieutenant.” He drawls with little gusto. The boy’s palm is rough, to be sure, but not weathered as his own.

“There’s talk of your serving as Sir James Clark Ross’s second on his expedition next year, sir. Is it so?” He asks.

Francis purses his lips. There’s a parcel of space around a man’s body that’s meant to remain sacred, his and his alone, and this Fitzjames is lingering at the periphery of his, “The Admiralty is considering the prospect.”

“I’ve always been intrigued by the Antarctic, you know, sir.” He continues, and then he’s properly within it, allowing Francis only a pittance of conspiratorial paces between them.

Francis arcs one brow at him. The sight seems to tickle him, and Francis regrets it immediately, “And why is that, Lieutenant Fitzjames?” He presses past it.

“Why, think of it, sir. The whole wide face of it, unknown, unexplored.” Fitzjames exclaims, “The glory of having one’s name writ over an entire island, a mountain. A singularly magnificent experience, I’ve no doubt.”

“You’ve never toiled in the cold, then.” Francis grunts, “A man hasn’t the strength for glory in the ice.”

Fitzjames’s face pinches in displeasure, a decidedly rattish little expression by Francis’s account, “I haven’t yet had the honor, I admit, sir.” He says, “But would surely relish it nonetheless.”

Francis can’t conceal the edge of a bitter chuckle. He swears that Fitzjames’s gaze, for a moment, grazes across his lips, and then he sniffs -  _ sniffs  _ at him, the petty thing! - and tilts up his chin, tongue playing briefly at the inside of his mouth, “Do you dismiss my interest, sir?”

“I wouldn’t dare dismiss such-...youthful enthusiasm.” The corner of Francis’s mouth twists up.

“I’m twenty four.” Fitzjames protests, “Hardly a youth any longer.”

“Ah, a wizened old man, then.” Francis puffs out.

“Merely a man, sir.” Fitzjames replies, “Already with deeds to his name to back up the claim.”

“Is that so?” Francis grumbles.

“I’ve already been awarded the Freedom of the City of Liverpool, sir.” Fitzjames lilts, “And of course, my position as an officer this very night. And though I’ll grant that I’ve not yet been to the Arctic as you have, sir, I daresay I hardly intend to stop there once I have.”

Francis sneers, “Better men than you have said the same.”

A bemused little smirk plays over Fitzjames’s lips. He takes a single step forward, defiant, now, their faces separated by a handful of inches, “And how, sir, have you come to know so quickly the sort of man I am?”

Francis exhales slowly. Surely he and Ross hadn’t been so careless in their meetings that now even this unruly child is able to mark him what he is. But here he is, brazen and close, gazing, now, in earnest, at Francis’s mouth.

At his perturbation, Fitzjames favors him with a smug smile, “Oh, have I given you cause to reassess?”

With this, he steps back, smoothing his gloved palms down the front of his uniform. He gives Crozier another appraising once-over, almost lewd in its bald interest, and then retreats across the ballroom. There are, Francis knows, vacant guest rooms in Chesney’s well-appointed home, and yet, he realizes as he follows Fitzjames down the hallway at a distance, they are headed in the opposite direction.

He nearly misses it when Fitzjames slips through the side door to the darkened anteroom that separates the hall from the study. It’s a small but lovely chamber, just large enough to snugly contain a loveseat and side table that faces the fireplace, over which hangs a stoic portrait of Lord Nelson. Francis barely has time to close the door behind himself before Fitzjames is pressing in against him.

“Now, perhaps, I shall show you the sort of man I am.” He breathes warmly against the hollow of Francis’s neck.

“Oh, of that I have no doubt.” Francis agrees.

It takes him all of a single moment to take him by the epaulets and push him, gasping, onto his knees. One of Francis’s hands darts out to seize his damnably pointed chin, and he’s shoved his thumb past his lips before Fitzjames has a chance to protest.

“Let me tell you-” Francis begins as Fitzjames stares up at him, “Precisely what is going to happen, here, Lieutenant.”

“Nnh.” Fitzjames whines around his thumb.

“None of that. Clearly, you can’t shut your own bloody mouth to save your life.” Francis huffs, “So I’ll shut it for you.”

He can see Fitzjames’s breath hitch, the way his chest jumps at the suggestion. He shifts on his knees beneath him, and Francis feels his tongue flick up against the pad of his thumb. Fitzjames’s eyes darken.

“There’s a good boy.” Francis praises, “You’ll see to it that you stay that way, if you intend for one moment to find your own ending. Otherwise, it won’t trouble me to leave you wanting once you’re coughing up my spend.”

Fitzjames’s entire body responds to him this time. He eddies closer immediately, digs one set of graceful fingers into Francis’s thigh, pleading. Francis smirks.

“Tell me, Lieutenant. What do you think of my proposal?” He asks. 

Fitzjames wastes no time, simply spreads his thighs wide so that Francis can see the straining evidence of his desire against his uniform trousers. A choked keen gutters in his throat when Francis eases the sole of one boot up between his legs. Francis draws his hand back from his chin, and his thumb slides free from his mouth with a wet, profane pop.

“What was that, Lieutenant?” He taunts, “I couldn’t make out your answer.”

“I should think it quite plain, were one gifted with even the most meager sight.” Fitzjames huffs, cheeks dark.

The sound that it makes when Francis strikes him, the back of his open hand crashing against that smooth, unblemished cheek, is like a clap of thunder. Fitzjames yelps, and Francis can see his cock jerk even through the fabric of his trousers. His hips, unbidden, surge up against Francis’s boot.

“I’ve told you what I think of your lip.” Francis chides, “Or do you need a muzzle, like the stray you are?”

Fitzjames’s eyes are wide, chest heaving with breath. His mouth opens, then closes once more, bereft, for one blissful moment, of words. His cheek is already stung red. Francis takes him by the chin once more.

“Hm?”

All that he receives in turn is a desperate, obedient whimper. He sets to his flies accordingly, and Fitzjames’s mouth is on him almost before he’s had a chance to free himself. He swallows Francis’s cock like a starved man, as if having Francis bottom out in his throat is all that can grant him succor.

Francis, for his part, uses him without mercy, fucks his pretty face until Fitzjames is drooling and clinging to his thighs for support. He watches the way his lips redden under his onslaught, slicks his thumb across the bottom one and hears it drag a helpless moan up from his slender chest. This, this is a man most improved by a cock down his throat.

He can feel Fitzjames writhing beneath him. He bucks and pitches against the steady pressure of Francis’s boot between his legs. He’s close, now, just from this, from being given precisely what it is he deserves. Francis can feel his own control fraying. He fists one hand in Fitzjames’s dark hair and drags him, sputtering, off his prick.

“Open your mouth.” He demands as he takes himself in the other hand.

Fitzjames does as he’s told. He’s still panting for air, chin wet, the soft, pink flat of his tongue slipping forward ever so slightly as he tilts his head back. Francis hisses at the sight of it and spends himself amply onto him, paints his mouth and chin and cheeks and throat with it, careless of where it may land. All Fitzjames needs is a hint more pressure with the sole of his boots and he’s dragged along with him, quaking and sucking at his filthy lips all the while.

It only takes Francis a moment to tuck himself away, fasten up his flies. When he’s presentable once more, he reaches down to pat Fitzjames’s cheek, only twice and even then, a hint too rough to be tender. Then, without sparing a word more, he leaves him there on his knees. 

A week later, when he learns from Barrow that Fitzjames has shown sudden interest in the discovery service, he finds he cannot in good conscience deny his own involvement in the matter. 

**Author's Note:**

> come be dashed upon the shores of fitzier with me on tumblr (@clutchhedonist)


End file.
